


Running Red

by WinterWidow94



Category: Marvel
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-21 05:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 20,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2457044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterWidow94/pseuds/WinterWidow94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With S.H.I.E.L.D. back on its feet, Natasha Romanoff is forced to face the past she'd rather leave buried when the Winter Soldier goes missing, and she's put on his trail.</p>
<p>* mostly canon storylines, tweaked for the fic's sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Red Room

When Natasha had told Steve she was going undercover, building a new identity, she was telling the truth. It wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but she had not lied. She was undercover. She had a different name – Natalia Romanova. It was an old name; she had not used it in at least ten years, maybe more.   
Not since Russia, in the Red Room.

“Maladyets!”  
Natalia looked at the training mat underneath her bare feet, hiding the flush of pride. The Winter Soldier's compliments were rare, a species nearly extinct. She had earned his verbal approval only twice before. This was three.  
Three times.  
Maladyets. The Russian equivalent of 'attagirl.'  
She mouthed it to herself, rolled it across her tongue. Maladyets.  
“Natalia.”   
She snapped back fully into herself and looked at her teacher. “Sorry.”  
“Don't lose focus.”   
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”   
He took an upwards fighting stance, tall and braced. He looked at her closely, peeling her skin away and probing her brain, assessing her next move.   
He had many things in his favor – experience, breadth, height, strength; even speed. He had no distinct fighting pattern, no style she could predict. He was a blunt instrument, a force of nature that bulldozed anything in its path.  
Including her.   
But she had a few advantages, and she clung to them. She was smaller, she could get places he couldn't. She was nimbler.   
And she could think outside the box.  
The Winter Soldier took a knife from the sheath on his vest.  
Ojemoy.  
This meant pain.  
He crossed the knife over, ready for attack. His metal arm was raised, a shield to protect his eyes; the only unprotected part of his body except his right hand.   
Natalia crouched and ran toward him, pushing away from the mat with as much force as she could. He swiped the knife down, aiming lower, but she tucked; rolled between his legs. He spun around, his leg already arcing, aiming for a kick to her head.   
She dodged and darted to the right.  
He switched the knife to his other hand, and she heard the hiss as the blade cut through the air less than two inches from her head. She jumped and lashed out, catching him behind the knee with the curve of her foot.  
The motion pulled him forward, his leg almost buckling under him. A normal opponent would have been brought down, but his reflexes were too fast. He counterbalanced with his other leg and spun, his metal fist out, and caught the side of her head.  
She staggered backwards, fighting to stay conscious. If she let herself get knocked out, she would regret it during the next training session. It would be longer, more brutal. He would work her until she could no longer stand.  
He was coming at her, a solid wall of metal and mindless determination.  
He wouldn't kill her with that knife, but he would wound her.  
She would have to work wounded.  
She didn't want that.  
She was unarmed, she had no weapon. He did.  
She had to get it -   
No. She couldn't get it away from him, she knew that. She wasn't skilled enough, and she couldn't rely on luck.  
But maybe she could manipulate it.   
He swung at her.  
It was the last second. Natalia sidestepped to the right, knowing he would expect her to move further. He overcompensated with his metal arm, over-reaching just a little too far.  
She ducked under his swing and grabbed his human wrist, the hand that held the knife.   
And she pulled it down.  
It shouldn't have worked, but he was just enough off-balance, just barely. And she had just enough pressure.  
The knife drove down and into his thigh.   
She heard a growl of pain behind the mask and he stepped backwards, uneven, his fingers putting pressure around the blade in his leg.  
His breathing was muffled, heavy. His eyes narrowed; not quite glaring, but assessing. Then he lifted his arms, crossed them.  
It was late. The session was over.   
She knew she had done well.  
She also knew that meant her training would accelerate.  
Feeling twice as tired already, she turned off the electric fence surrounding the training ring and walked out, her muscles aching.   
A few hours' sleep. That was what she needed.  
It would help her forget that, when she had gripped the Winter Soldier's wrist just before stabbing him with his own knife, she had felt a pulse.   
The pulse was going to bleed through her dreams.


	2. The Ghost with Blue Eyes

She remembered hearing the other trainees speak of the Winter Soldier, always in whispers. They said he was cold and efficient, merciless. Deadly. Not quite human. He was a shadow, the dark shape you saw when you opened your eyes at night. You could blink; it would disappear.  
And then it had been her turn to meet him.  
She could remember sitting in the corner of the red room, her back pressed against the unfeeling crimson wall. She must have looked pathetic. A scrawny teenager with hacked-off hair and bruises.  
Keep your eyes closed. Keep them closed.  
It's not real.   
He's not real, and it will go away.  
She heard the door open, heard heavy footsteps carrying her nightmare toward her.  
Then silence.  
She could feel his presence, a static feeling that swept shivers up her arms.   
Open your eyes.  
Don't be a child.   
You're not a child.  
She opened her eyes.   
He was crouched in front of her, not two feet away. He was not what she expected. What had she expected?   
He was terrifying. To her, at that moment, he seemed impossibly huge. His face was shadowed, his shoulders broad, and his metal arm gleamed in the harsh training lights.   
She had heard it was made of something called vibranium. Completely shock-absorbent, some of the only vibranium in existence. The rest had been made into a shield somewhere in America. According to rumors, the metal arm calibrated, fixed itself, was connected to his brain. Some said it controlled him, like Doc Oc in the comics.  
She focused on his eyes.  
They were blue.   
This surprised her, although she wasn't sure why. Maybe she had thought he would have black holes where eyes should be. She had imagined they were red, like lasers.  
Not one time had she imagined they would be blue.  
“Do you know who I am, little one?”  
His voice was rusty, but not loud.  
She nodded. “Winter Soldier. You're going to teach me to fight?”  
She asked it as a question.  
He shook his head once, sharply. “No. I am going to teach you to kill.”


	3. Blackout Days

Natalia Romanova stood outside the apartment. It was dingy, small, cheap and probably filthy. She had hidden in places like this out of desperation, but never enjoyed it. She had intended to go to Spain, to hide with her old identity. Build up a new cover until S.H.I.E.L.D rebuilt itself.   
She had heard they were starting; that they had a hovercraft and an underground hideout and a handful of new recruits.   
But then she had received a call, just one; from a man she had thought was dead, been told was dead.  
Coulson said, “Not that you're interested, but there's a string of dead HYDRA agents around Baltimore. Three. Messy deaths, definitely not subtle. You could check it out if you were heading in that direction. If you're not, don't worry about it.”   
By this time, she was used to ghosts.  
“I might check it out,” she said.  
So here she was now. She had tracked him down. He had been hard to track the first week. It was like chasing an evening shadow. It kept growing longer and darker until she thought she was seeing him everywhere, and nothing was really him.  
He had slipped up, given her a grasp on his trail.   
Then he had done it again.   
Part of her wondered if it was on purpose; if he was baiting her, if he wanted to catch whoever he knew was following.  
But part of her had another feeling, a feeling he was losing his edge. He had been out of cryosleep too long, and she knew what that did to him. Over the years, his periods of being awake had been shortened. When left unfrozen for too long, he began to experience medical and mental problems. Panic attacks, confusion, blurred vision, and – what HYDRA deemed the worst issue – he began to grasp things, to remember, in bits and flashes, who he was. It was never anything dangerous, never anything to tip the scales. He might hum a Bing Crosby song from the forties, for instance.   
He had been out of cryofreeze, his mind unwiped, for three weeks. By now he would be having steady panic attacks, maybe even a minor heart attack or two. Granted, his heart could take it – it healed after each time; after a few hours, he was fine. But he had never been on his own before, not like this; not for seventy-three years. He had been released twenty-nine times. During their training at the Soviet HYDRA base, he had been re-frozen seven of those times. The periods between were the longest he had ever gone without cryosleep. Once he had gone ten months without being frozen. It was the last time, the time they realized no matter how well he trained students, they couldn't afford the experiment. He wouldn't last.  
So they re-froze him for eight more years, until they released him to kill Steve Rogers.  
Natasha rubbed her forehead. She could always knock. He would most likely be waiting for her. He probably knew she was here already. She flexed her fingers. A needle had been placed along her wrist, inside her glove. All she had to do was prick him with the heel of her hand and he would be out for three hours, maybe four.  
Probably two.  
She took a deep breath. You can do this. Come on. It's no big deal.  
She knocked. “Hey, Barnes, you in there?”  
There was no response.  
She knocked again, twice, before kicking the door in. It wasn't hard; the apartment was cheap in more ways than one.  
“Barnes?” She could hear the caution in her own voice as she stepped around the corner. The room was spartan – peeling paint, a threadbare couch. No bed, no blanket. Not even a coffee maker.   
She frowned and turned to go.   
She barely saw the figure silhouetted in the doorway before a metallic blow snapped her head back and sent her crumbling to the ground, and the world melted around her.


	4. The Tin Man

She knew her hands were tied before she opened her eyes. It was a familiar feeling, being bound like this. Except usually, she was completely in control of the situation. She opened her eyes, just a little, in case he wasn't there.   
He was.  
She flexed her hand behind her back, but there was no room. She realized she was handcuffed to a pipe underneath the kitchen sink. An experimental tug proved the pipe was strong enough to hold her, unless he left her free to work on it.  
There was no chance of that.  
He was crouched in front of her, a gun across his knee. He was unshaven and his eyes were red-rimmed. His jeans were torn and his jacket looked secondhand, but it was him.  
The whole apartment had been a trap.  
Well, good for him.  
“Hey there, Barnes.” She smiled, just a little. It was the tiny, flirtatious kind of smile that usually planted the first seed in a seduction job. She had no idea why she pulled it out when talking to someone who had never needed her seducing. Besides, she was here to bring him in, and then – hopefully – she could wash her hands of the whole thing. “Nice digs.”  
He continued to look at her, unblinking. His mouth was a firm line.   
He looked so...old. Haggard. She had been to the Smithsonian exhibit, had seen the pictures and films in his file. It was hard to believe that eager boy was this thing here.  
Look what they did to you.   
She felt herself beginning to hurt for him and immediately steeled herself against it, and against him. He was her mission, nothing more.  
“What do you want?”  
His voice was rustier than when he had first spoken to her. Had he talked to anyone in the last three weeks?   
“Just saying hi,” she said affably. Her gloves were still on. She still had the tranquilizer, but she would need to catch him off guard.  
Piece of cake, she thought wryly.   
“Liar.”  
“I'm not-”  
He lifted the gun. It was six inches from her face, and she couldn't get it out of his grasp.   
“I'm tracking you down for S.H.I.E.L.D.”  
He lowered the gun, but never took his finger off the trigger. “To kill me.”  
“No. To bring you in.”  
“To kill me,” he repeated. He swayed a little, like a drunk man. Except he couldn't get drunk, and she knew it.   
“I don't know what they want with you, but I promise, it isn't to kill you. You're too valuable.”  
The appeal to his hardware seemed to sink in. He was worth millions of dollars in experimental technology. Every time they re-froze him in the cryochamber was thousands more. He was an investment, and he understood it.  
“Let me bring you in,” she urged, her voice steady. She was going to have to rush this. He looked on the verge of passing out, and if that happened, there was a chance he wouldn't wake up. She barely knew anything about the technology or physiology surrounding him, but she felt her concerns were valid. “They – we – can help you.”  
He shook his head. “You don't want to help me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You want to help the sergeant. 'Bucky.' Not me.”  
She shifted her position, her shoulder blades pressing into the half-closed cabinet doors. All handcuffs had a weak spot if you could get at it; she just had to wiggle this pair around and see what she found. “We want to help you. I promise.”  
“Promise?” He repeated the word like it was in a language he hadn't heard before. “You spy. You kill. I might – I might be broken. I'm not stupid.”  
“I don't think you're stupid, Barnes.”  
He swayed again, lowered to both knees. His hands continued to rest on the gun.   
“Listen to me.” She raised her voice, made it louder. His eyes had a glassy look, like a drugged animal in a lab. “Barnes!”   
He did not respond. Wherever he was, it wasn't here.  
She closed her eyes, and dug.   
Dug up what she used to call him.  
What she whispered in his ear, what she called playfully across the ring, what she murmured half-asleep.  
"Soldier."


	5. Soldier

The first year was by far the worst. She was a sixteen-year-old with street smarts and the mind of a con man, but she had no real training. She trained once, sometimes twice a week with the Winter Soldier; although for the first twelve months, it was safer to say she got beat up and learned from her mistakes.   
She called him 'sir' for the first year. He hardly spoke to her. He would walk into the red room, point toward whatever weapon she was supposed to use – or, if no weapons were required, would simply attack her.  
She learned to think on her feet, to keep her mind open, to not assume anything. When he did speak, she listened. She learned to listen to his silence just as closely.  
He would disappear, sometimes for a month at a time. She knew he might be on a mission, or he might be in cryofreeze, but she never knew for sure. Everything about the Winter Soldier was a mystery, and one she was smart enough not to dig into.  
And then, one day, she didn't just see him. She saw through him.  
He didn't mean to let her, she knew that much.  
It was her fourth week in a row without him disappearing. It was unusual. Their training sessions, instead of twelve hours, had shrunk to ten in the last week.  
Today was Saturday, and they had been sparring for nine hours. He never tired, never faltered – it was like fighting a robot designed to defend and adapt in any situation, except this robot had blue eyes.  
Human eyes.  
He was teaching her the thigh choke, and she was having difficulty. He couldn't demonstrate it personally, as someone three times her weight would have crushed her, so he was guiding her through using monosyllables and gestures.   
She didn't have trouble with choking anyone; it was jumping and landing in the right position that she couldn't seem to master. Each time she overshot him, or she didn't climb up him the right way and slipped, or she couldn't keep her grip.  
She could tell he was growing frustrated with her. They had been working at it for four hours. Her legs were shaking, her fingers could hardly grip, she was out of breath.  
Almost eighteen and she couldn't perform something as simple as a thigh choke.   
“I'm sorry,” she gasped, on her hands and knees, trying to catch a ragged breath or two before the next attempt. “I'm sorry.”  
Usually, after she apologized, there were two reactions.  
He would shake his head, ignore the apology, and make her try again.  
Or, he would look at her for a moment, and walk out; like he was too angry or irritated to continue without beating her head in.   
She looked up at him to see which reaction she would get this time.  
Shock and confusion filled her mind. He was bent over and clutching his head, his eyes squeezed shut in silent agony or bewilderment; or both.   
She climbed to her feet. “Sir?”  
His breathing was loud through his mask.  
Again, her voice pitched higher, she asked, “Sir?”  
He straightened, lowered his hands. For a brief second, she thought he had recovered. So did he, apparently.  
Then he twisted to the side, staggered, and fell. Sparks shot away from his metal arm as he collided against the electric fence.   
Natalia was at the switch in a heartbeat and switched it off.  
The electricity died, and the Winter Soldier rolled away from the fence with painful slowness. The metal plates of his arm were recalibrating, shifting back into position. Smoke twisted from several places on his armor, but he was alive. He was still breathing.  
“Sir, are you all right? Should I get a doctor?”  
He shook his head. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees before reaching for his mask. It took two tries to get it off, and then he threw it, taking in a deep breath.  
Natalia didn't know what to do. In a year, she had never seen the infamous Winter Soldier vulnerable, or even badly wounded. He took it in stride. She had once seen one of his superiors – one of the scientists who oversaw him – slap him. It was strange and uncomfortable watching the action, like an abusive parent and a child. He was a weapon of mass destruction. He could have killed the scientist with one hand.  
Instead, he hardly noticed it.  
Now he was halfway incapacitated. Was it a trick, to make her try and attack him? To force her hand? Was it a new test?  
Somehow she knew it wasn't.   
A strange sound came from his throat; a strangled cry, like a wild animal.  
“Sir?”  
Okay.  
Obviously, 'sir' was not registering.  
He was often called 'the asset.'  
“Asset?”  
No response. He was leaning down, gripping his head so hard she was afraid his metal fingers would splinter his skull.  
“Sir!”  
His chest was heaving. He looked like a bomb about to explode. This was bad. And for some reason, she didn't want anyone else to see it.  
She ran around in front of him and sank quickly to her knees. “Hey. Hey!” Without letting herself think too much, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him.  
His eyes lifted, landed on her face with all the recognition of a stranger.  
She tried again, tried something new. “Hey! Soldier!”  
He blinked.  
Shook his head a few more times, as if ridding himself of a swarm of bees.  
Natalia quickly took her hands off him. “Are...are we going to continue?”  
He took in a deep breath, while she stared at his face.  
He was so...human. Just a man with a metal arm and hard, hard luck.  
The Winter Soldier nodded and climbed to his feet with effort.   
Natalia picked his mask off the floor and held it up to him.  
He studied it, studied her hand.   
He took the mask from her and placed it back on, covering the strangely vulnerable skin, the tight mouth, the scar on his chin. Once again, he looked the part.  
Except she now knew what his true appearance was.


	6. Lights Out

“Soldier.”  
His eyes moved back to her.   
Blue eyes.  
Human eyes.  
“Natalia.”  
He did not phrase it like a question, but she heard that it was.  
“Natasha.” She shrugged as well as she could. “I'm going by Natalia at the moment.”  
He nodded. It was a slow movement, almost like an afterthought. If she didn't know it was physically impossible, if she didn't know him, she would have thought he was a drug addict, high on some serious crack.  
She tugged on the handcuffs again and -   
There.  
She felt the pressure point. If she could just work on it without him noticing...  
Keep him talking.   
“You've been busy,” she remarked.  
Something like a flinch, but not quite as remorseful, passed over his face.  
“Three dead HYDRA agents.” She pursed her lips. “Not bad. Could be more subtle, though.” She twitched the corner of her mouth. “Seriously? You blew up a car, threw a guy out the window of his thirty-third floor office, and...what was the third one? A bazooka rocket?”  
Twist the chain. Twist it again.  
Again.  
Again.  
She could feel it pulling her wrists. The pain said she was almost there, she almost had it.  
He looked down at the floor.  
“You're slipping, Barnes.” She allowed just a hint of a teasing tone into her voice. Lull him. “Must be age.”  
“Natalia,” he repeated.  
Had he heard anything she had just said?  
She twisted again and felt the weak link bend.  
She seized her opportunity and pulled her wrists apart as hard as she could and lashed out with her feet at the same time. The heels of her boots slammed into his chest and she used the momentum to leap to her feet, the broken handcuffs dangling from each wrist.  
He lifted the gun, but he was tired, dazed, and she had the element of surprise.  
She made a running leap and landed straddling his shoulders. It took less than two seconds to stick the needle in his neck and climb off before he collapsed to the floor. His gun clattered a few feet away, sliding until it hit the counter.  
The door burst open with a sound like a gunshot and Natalia whirled around.  
Six men in S.H.I.E.L.D uniforms strode into the room and parted on each side. Between them walked the familiar, commanding figure of Nick Fury.  
“Impressive.” He studied the Winter Soldier's body, then the handcuffs on Natalia's wrists. “Need a key?” he asked.  
It took a lot to shock her, and she was shocked now. “You... followed me?”  
“To be fair, we weren't sure you were going to take Coulson's suggestion.”  
“You followed me?”  
“You're A S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Romanoff. So yes, we followed you.” He sighed, then spun two fingers in the air.  
The soldiers – each armed well enough for three men – stepped forward and lifted the Winter Soldier off the floor.  
Natalia stared as they carried him out to the armored van she could now see parked outside beneath the scrawny, withering tree.   
“Congratulations, Agent.” Fury smiled, approval gleaming from his good eye. “You just brought in S.H.I.E.L.D's most wanted.”


	7. Chernushka, November 2001

Natalia was not sure how she felt. She was three feet away from the cold metal of the Winter Soldier's arm, her back pushed up against a snowbank.   
Was she excited? She was trusted enough to be sent on a mission with the Winter Soldier legend himself. Of course she was. Eager? More than a little. She wanted to prove herself, to show him she had paid attention. She did not just want to be a good student; she wanted to be his best student.   
And if she could earn his respect...  
Well. She supposed she could die happy.  
Or at least as close to happy as anyone could ever get.   
Voices shouted through the frozen air. “Toropit'sya! Toropit'sya! Dvigatsa! Dvigatsa!”  
“They're in an awful hurry,” she said in a low voice.  
The Winter Soldier did not move. He held a HYDRA gun in his hands; a wide-barreled black menace that she had never seen in action. They had been sent to re-route a cold war solar bomb that, officially, had never been created.   
“Should we go?” she asked, still keeping her voice down.  
In response, the Winter Soldier placed a gloved finger to his lips.  
She peered over the edge of the snowbank. Black-clad soldiers raced below like ants, climbing into a truck disguised as an ambulance.  
It was a by-the-book, but useful, disguise. After all, you would have to be ruthless to attack such a defenseless vehicle.  
You would have to be HYDRA.  
She gripped her own guns; two fully-loaded Uzis.   
They're wearing bullet-proof gear; aim at their legs. You don't need to kill them all; just make sure they can't follow.  
The ambulance engine started. It was parked at a fork in the road. They needed the truck to take the right turn, unplanned; but they couldn't risk hitting the ambulance itself. A solar bomb held the heat of the sun and could span a four-mile radius. The fallout alone was hot enough to melt everything for the next two miles after the original explosion.  
“Now?” she whispered.  
A heartbeat.  
He nodded once, and in the same motion gripped the bank and threw himself over, twisting through the air and landing on his feet not thirty yards from the truck.  
Natalia saw the security soldiers lift their guns and spray fire at him, and she rose from her position and fired back. Her bullets were more accurate. She mowed the men down into screaming victims rolling on the ground, most of them still alive.   
The Winter Soldier pumped the gun in his hands and blasted near the front of the ambulance. It looked like he was aiming for the truck, but she knew better.  
He fired again. The tremor rocked her; she had to fight to keep her balance.  
A crater appeared in the road, blocking the left side. He continued to approach, his steps sure, pumping the gun, preparing to fire again.  
The ambulance tires squealed as the driver backed up and wrenched the vehicle to the right. The Winter Soldier raised his gun.  
He waited, just long enough.   
Then he fired after the truck again. It was enough force to make the ambulance bounce, the back tires almost clipped by the explosion.  
Almost.  
Natalia ran down the snowbank and stood a few feet away from the Winter Soldier.  
He lowered the gun and they watched as the ambulance took the route they had planned for it. They would be met by a squadron of HYDRA bomb technicians.  
“We did it.” Natalia thought she did a good job of suppressing the elation in her voice. It sounded professional. It was a very simple job, she knew that. But she had done it with the Winter Soldier, and everything had gone according to plan.  
She realized she was waiting for a compliment. Another 'maladyets,' or a simple nod of his head acknowledging her part.  
She risked a glance at him. His mask covered his eyes today, protection from his own firearm. He was unreadable.  
Then he turned and walked back up the snowbank, his gun resting on his metal shoulder.  
Natalia was no fool for emotion. She never had been.  
And yet she found herself swallowing the bitter taste of disappointment.   
Fool.  
She was humiliated, and it was a private humiliation. At least that was something.  
She turned and followed the Winter Soldier.  
As soon as she reached him atop the snowbank, he turned and fired his weapon one more time.  
She stared as the blast wiped out the felled soldiers, turning their injuries to deaths.  
He had taught her how to kill.  
Not how to spare lives.  
That was why.   
She had failed him.  
She swallowed and looked him in the eyes; or as close as she could. Her own reflection looked back at her. “I shouldn't have let them live.” There was no tremble in her voice. She would face her own consequences. “I'm sorry. It was a mistake, and it won't happen again.”  
He was still looking at her, forcing her to stare at her own reflection.  
She lowered her gaze and noticed the broken lower half of his mask.  
“You're shot!”  
He reached toward his face. The way he barely noticed pain – most pain – churned something in her stomach. He felt it, she knew. But he had been told his own pain was unimportant, that doing anything but ignoring it was out of line.  
She reached up and removed the lower half of his mask before she knew what she was doing. The bullet had not entered his jaw, but it had burned a deep line from the corner of his mouth to below his ear. It would heal in a day, probably sooner, but she unwrapped the scarf from her neck and pressed it to his face anyway.  
Her own reflections followed her movement, and he lifted a hand automatically when she pressed the scarf against the wound. He paused before it touched her hand. Just before.  
“Natalia,” he said, in a voice both hoarse and soft.   
She was used to hearing her name leave his lips, in many tones. Disappointed. Sharp. Frustrated. Sometimes, even approving.  
But never with tenderness.   
It was a foreign concept to him.  
Wasn't it?  
She matched his tone. “Soldier.”  
He lowered his head. It was not much, hardly a movement at all.  
She put her hand on his neck and pulled him down closer, and she kissed him.   
She had dreamed before, dreamed she had watched herself doing strangely ordinary things; like a separate entity, apart from her body.  
The kiss managed to feel both ways. He was real, solid, both cold and warm.  
But she couldn't remember if she was real or not.  
She paused, pulled back just enough to look at him. A smile curved her mouth, just a little. She felt it. “Try not to get shot again, huh?” She released him, placed her other gun in its holster against her thigh.  
A metallic grip – tight, but surprisingly lighter than what she was used to – caught her upper arm and pulled her back.  
She had never been kissed like that. She hadn't known a kiss could be like that. They were either too light or too eager or too – something.  
Not his.  
They knew each other too well for that.  
She wished it could have lasted longer, but her earpiece gave an electronic squeal and Captain Kozlov barked, “Agent Romanova, report.”  
Breathless, she said quickly, “Mission is accomplished. The package should be intercepted in less than three minutes.”  
“Return to base.”  
The connection switched off.  
“We need to go,” she said, clearing her throat.  
He nodded, and shouldered his gun again.  
This time she did not follow two yards behind. She walked next to him.  
He said nothing against it.


	8. Protest

Natalia folded her arms across her chest and watched Fury stride behind the desk and settle down in his chair. He focused on the desk in front of him, reading a report she couldn't see. He wanted to make her wait, test her patience.  
Fine.  
The blue clock numbers on the wall ticked away seconds, then minutes.  
Finally, he glanced up at her. “You got somethin' to say?”  
She lowered her arms to her sides and stepped forward. “Where did you put the – prisoner?”  
“He's secured.”  
“Sir-”  
She was struck with all the force of his direct gaze. “He is secure, agent.”  
“What makes you think you can hold him?”  
He sighed. “We prepared for an event like this. Holding a level seven prisoner shouldn't be a problem.”  
Natalia kept her gaze steady. “Sir, with all due respect, I don't think you know what you're dealing with.”  
“Then enlighten us,” he said, spreading his hands. He added dryly, “Or file a complaint.”  
What was she supposed to say?  
How could she help them without revealing her past with the Winter Soldier? Her training? Among other things.  
“I have nothing more to add.”  
“Good! You're free to go.” He returned his focus to the desktop.   
Natalia turned to exit the room, but Fury's voice pulled her attention back. “By the way, not a word of this to Rogers.”  
She paused. “Do you really think-”  
“That's a direct order. You can go.”  
She could not leave fast enough.  
Don't tell Rogers.  
Don't tell him that they had apprehended the man he'd spent the past month searching for. Don't tel him that his former best friend was being held in this same base, a thousand yards away.   
Lie to the one man who viewed her as a friend.   
And this is why people like me don't have relationships. We're not cut out for it.


	9. Bruske, December 2001

Natalia felt the shift beside her and sat up, pushing her hair out of the way. It startled some deep part of her, seeing the blond strands between her fingers. She needed to dye it back in the morning.   
The Winter Soldier had pushed himself up on one arm and was staring across the room with a vague, glassy look in his tired eyes.   
“What is it, kholodno odin?” she asked, resting against his side so she could better see his face. She had called him 'cold one' once and it had earned her a smile. Over the last few weeks it had become more of an endearment than anything else. He was cold, but only because he had been frozen. And frozen. And frozen. If someone would give him a chance...well. He could die, or perhaps it would reveal the soul she knew to be inside, the soul she caught shattered, painful glimpses of too rarely.  
He shook his head, just a little. She barely heard him say, “Nothing,” in English. He was difficult enough to understand in Russian because he spoke so little; his English was surprisingly clear.  
She knew he would not talk to her about it. He never did.   
Instead, she leaned her chin against his metal shoulder and smiled. “Remember the time Zirina distracted me and you still detracted a point from my score?”  
He glanced at her. “You allowed yourself to be distracted,” he said. Back to Russian.  
“I still owe you one. A large, nasty one. I'm going to get my payback.” She wrapped her arm around his waist, her chin still on his shoulder.   
“You shouldn't tell someone if you want to gain the advantage. A child knows this.”  
“I didn't give away anything important,” she teased quietly. “I only reminded you that revenge is an issue.  
“Your issue. Not mine.”  
“You've never wanted revenge for anything?”  
His eyes moved to the right, then the left; thinking, trying to remember. To know anything about himself. “No.”  
“Maybe you should.”  
“No.”  
“Why not?”  
“Even if I wanted revenge, it isn't important.”  
“Because your wants aren't important,” she finished, her voice bleeding into a whisper. “I know.”  
Silence enfolded them like a blanket.  
Then, even softer, she added, “But they are to me.”  
“Natalia,” he began. He had that vaguely frustrated tone, the one that said 'there are rules, and they must be followed, and you should know this by now.'  
She pushed him onto his back and looked down at him. “Don't 'Natalia' me.' You're all I have, okay? You're what I care about. Don't underestimate yourself.”  
She knew he would. Never his abilities, never his orders. But his humanity was not only underestimated; he didn't believe in it. He never thought about it.   
This was depressing her.  
His mouth was in a line, twisted to the side. “Natali-”  
She pressed a finger to his lips. “No more. Not tonight.”  
He sighed, but she felt his body let the argument go, relax just a little. If she wanted to stop arguing, he would. He didn't enjoy it, and never had.  
Natalia smiled and bent down, her hair feathering his face as she pressed a soft kiss to his jaw. Then another to the side of his neck, and another to the hollow of his throat.  
She felt his chest rise with a caught breath, grazed his ribs with her fingertips. Then she kissed his shoulder, where flesh bonded with metal, the edge of scars that saved his life by turning him into something else.  
His human hand gripped her arm, found the curve of her shoulder blade.   
She closed her eyes and let the night swallow them both.


	10. New Arrangements

Twenty-three days passed, and Fury never once mentioned the Winter Soldier. Nobody mentioned him, except Steve, who thought the assassin was still out somewhere and had not stopped his search for him.  
On the twenty-third day, Natalia was sitting around the table with Steve and Sam. Clint was in Ukraine, and the newer S.H.I.E.L.D recruits – Skye and FitzSimmons and the others – were with Coulson and the hovercraft, tracking down Ward, a HYDRA sleeper who had recently resurfaced on S.H.I.E.L.D radar after disappearing for over a month.  
Fury walked in through the doors. “Well, I have good news, and I have good news.”  
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Good and good? I dunno, man, that sounds a little fishy to me.”  
“I hate to say it, but I agree with him,” said Steve.  
Natalia took a sip of her coffee without really looking at Fury. Their relationship had been strained since their last talk about the Winter Soldier. He gave her orders, she accepted them. That was the extent of their conversations. But now, she said, “Good news.”  
She could use some.  
“The good news is that Stark has completed the Avengers tower.”  
“Which is...?” Steve leaned forward.  
Natalia shook her head and looked at him. “His pet project. He wants us to live together in a big multipurpose building. Part headquarters, part dorm room. Very green.”  
“And big enough to hold everyone?” He sounded half skeptical, but his eyes were wide with the possibility.  
“It's ninety-three stories.”  
Sam almost choked on his coffee. “Whoa. Dude. That's some serious architecture. When's it ready to move in?”  
“According to Mr. Stark, he's acquiring the furniture.”  
“Well, I hope Pepper's helping,” said Natalia. “Otherwise everything's going to be so modern it's impossible to sit in.”  
“Or sleep in,” said Sam.  
Steve smiled, then glanced at Nick. “So what's the other good news?”  
“You'll be interested in this, Cap. Someone surrendered himself three days ago. He's been analyzed and debriefed, and he's on strict probation.”  
Steve spread his hands, the universal gesture for 'who?'  
Fury stepped back out of the doorway and motioned with a gloved hand.   
Natalia felt her stomach turn.  
This was the way he was going to introduce him?  
He had turned himself in?  
What kind of brainwashed HYDRA assassin would -   
Steve was the first to speak. “Bucky?”  
The Winter Soldier looked...different. Natalia had seen him in civilian clothes before, when she followed him for Coulson, but this was a uniform, not very different from his old one. Washed up and more alert than she had possibly ever seen him, he stood slightly behind and to the left of Fury, like a silent bodyguard.  
“The new and improved James Barnes,” said Fury. He was watching Steve closely, judging his reaction. “Like I said, on probation.”  
Sam spoke up. “Who's his probation officer?”  
Fury said, “I am. From now on, he answers to me. Isn't that right, Barnes?”  
The Winter Soldier nodded once.  
Sam was watching the assassin with a shrewd look in his eyes. “So Freezer Burn's gonna be our new roommate? That should make things interesting.”  
Like they weren't already, thought Natalia.   
Steve was the first to make a move. He stood, tall and straight, and looked evenly at the hardened, twisted, hammered piece of metal that was once his best friend. “Good to have you.”  
Bucky said, “Thanks.”  
It was a casual word. In all the time Natalia had known him, he had never spoken casually. Never flippantly. 'Thanks' threw her more off guard than anything he could possibly have said.   
Steve nodded and sat back down. To Fury, he said, “Don't worry about him. We'll keep an eye on him, but I'm sure he'll be fine.”  
“Oh,” said Fury, “so am I.” He pointed at the Winter Soldier. “You slip up once, it's back into the freezer. I've made that clear to him.”  
Steve blinked several times, confused. “You have that kind of equipment?”  
“As a matter of fact, we do. Now, if anyone has any questions, speak now or hold your peace.”  
Sam hesitated. “What if he slips up and...I don't know, 'accidentally' kills all of us? This guy's not exactly gonna win any awards for Safest Roommate.”  
“If he can kill all of you, then you wouldn't be much good,” Nick pointed out. “And the building is JARVIS-equipped; a little present from Mr. Stark.”  
Steve sighed.  
Sam grinned. “Now that's cool.”  
“And nosy,” Natalia pointed out. “Is there any way to shut it down?”  
“Yes,” said Nick, “but not until I feel comfortable with the Barnes and you being in the same chicken coop.”  
Natalia had been looking at the table, or Steve, or Sam – anywhere but the dark figure in the back of the room. Now she risked a sideways glance at him. He had always been the silent type, but his emotions – or lack of them – were always written on his face like a bold type, if you knew how to read him.  
His mouth was closed, his eyes neither narrowed with animosity or widened with interest. His posture was neither relaxed or tense; he looked like a soldier under inspection to whom the general has just said 'at ease.'   
In short, he was giving nothing away, and Natalia couldn't tell whether it was by his design, or Fury's.


	11. Shades of Blue

The days and weeks passed with a new kind of color. Her world was dripping red, but now there was someone to staunch her bleeding even as he cut someone else open. Most of the time she felt drowned by him, overwhelmed by his simplicities and his complexities and the faint flashes of soul that spoke of so much more, buried down too deep for either of them to reach. She knew she was in over her head – he had no conscience, no sense of who he really was, and he would do anything if HYDRA told him to do it. He never hesitated. He was a bulldozing machine, a ballistic missile fired again and again and he always returned, the dog called back to his master.  
He broke her heart and pieced it together with such effortlessness that she barely realized it was happening. She only knew new heights of passion, new depths of despair. Everything was touched with what she felt. For the first time, and the only time, she was not pretending to be in love. She was not seducing, lying, deceiving.   
She loved him with everything she had.  
The true miracle, the one she laid wake at night and doubted until he took her in his arms, was that he loved her back. Was he capable of loving? Was he going through motions simply because he felt they were expected, or were his words, his actions, driven by something deeper?  
She asked him once.  
She was hanging from the ceiling by a steel cord, practicing her drop accuracy, and she could no longer keep the thought in.  
The Soldier was standing against the wall with his arms folded, watching her with shadowed eyes.   
Natalia lowered the guns to her sides. “Hey.”  
He did not blink. “Why did you stop?”   
“Do you love me?”  
He started to unfold his arms, taken aback, and then re-folded them. “You are not focused on your work.”  
“Answer the question.”  
“Do as you are told.”  
“So, you don't, then.”  
“We do not have time-”  
He broke off, and she continued to watch him with a raised eyebrow.  
Then he removed one of the knives from his belt and threw it.   
Natalia braced herself for the impact, but she should have braced herself for a fall. She got her feet under her and landed well enough, crouched; not perfectly, her wrist hurt, but it was nothing.  
The Winter Soldier pushed away from the wall and strode toward her, without a hint of slowing down before he reached her.  
Was he really going to punish her for asking an irrelevant question mid-session? Was he -   
He hauled her off the ground with both hands, pulling her collar so tight she could hardly breathe. He's going to fling you across the room. Don't tense up. Keep yourself malleable to minimize injuries. Don't -  
His mouth pressed against hers, and she willingly parted her lips for him. His hand of flesh and bone caressed the side of her face. She sprang up in a simple, agile move to wrap her legs around his waist, take his face in her hands as his metal arm curled around her67 back, his mechanical fingers tight through the fabric of her clothing.  
She felt him lower to his knees, but the kiss never broke, they never paused for a breath. This desire to share – to share her, her soul, everything she could give – was an intoxicating feeling, she had never felt it before.   
It was intoxicating.  
He was intoxicating.   
She whispered something even she did not quite understand.  
He breathed, heavy, wordless, against her skin.  
Her questions slipped away, sand through her fingers, as they always did.   
With the dim training lights on, she felt the pressure of exposure fill her with a strange kind of elation. Every flaw and scar was open, on the skin and underneath it; and in some small way, it was healing, even if it was only for the moment.

The next day, Natalia was called in to see her commander. Her heart raced, but she covered it with smooth calm. She stood outside the door and allowed the blue bioscanner to read her.  
“Agent Romanova,” she announced herself.  
The door slid open with a metallic hiss.  
She stepped through. The room was large, with a window overlooking the snow-covered ground far below; and sterile. Everything was a dull silver, except for the red HYDRA symbol, blatant behind the desk.  
There was no one behind the desk.  
Her suspicions immediately aroused, she stepped forward, to look behind the computer screen swallowing the desk. It went from translucent to opaque when it was shut down or asleep, but a brief glance told her there was no one there.  
She turned to go, but the door was shut.   
The Winter Soldier blocked her way.  
He was in full uniform, his face covered by a mask and eye wear.  
A single-barrel ion gun was in his hands.  
She knew what was happening before she had time to register any emotions. Her body reacted before anything else. A back flip threw her behind the desk just as the material exploded in every direction.  
She drew a semi-automatic from her belt and fired through the cloud of lingering blue light from the gun, running across the long room to make herself harder to hit.  
Another blast blew into the wall beside her. The hearing left her right ear, seared by the shock, the nearness of the sound.  
He was trying to kill her.  
He was trying to kill her.  
He was trying to kill her.  
He was going to succeed if she didn't move.  
She threw herself into a full-throttle run toward the blast and the debris clearing in the air.   
She reached the door.   
Another blast destroyed half the door.  
He was standing in the middle of the room. She knew, behind the lenses, he was watching her with those bright, bright blue eyes.  
It took her half a second to realize his last shot had struck half the door and the electronic locking mechanism.  
She turned and ran through the open doorway.  
She did not stop running.


	12. Trying Too Hard

The Stark Tower was a masterpiece of architecture and technology, and Natalia couldn't believe there was enough of S.H.I.E.L.D still left to fill the eighty-five floors that weren't for the agents' living quarters.  
The eight floors that were reserved for them housed the rooms, the kitchen, recreation, gym, lab, computers, and any extravagance or necessity Tony Stark had thought they would need. The entire tower was a project for him to stretch his creative mind and see how much money he could blow on things he didn't need; or at least this was the general thought when they moved in.  
The bedrooms were spacious, but not cavernous. Bulletproof windows faced the city landscape, and only the highest technology (all of it Stark) surrounded them. The rooms ran down either side of a six-foot-wide hallway, and there were two floors reserved for the rooms, bath-and-shower rooms – although only one of them housed the enormous kitchen.  
Sam took a room on the upper floor, while Steve, Natalia, and Barnes took rooms on the lower floor where the kitchen was housed. Barnes' room was assigned to him by Nick, who claimed he would feel better with Steve and Natalia to keep an eye on him.  
Clint called and vied for a room on the top floor.  
“Both the birdmen on the top floor,” she replied with a small smile. “Got it.”  
“Hey, what's wrong?”  
She blinked. “I didn't say anything.”  
“So what is it?”  
She groaned. Checking to make sure her door was tightly shut, she crossed back over and sat down on her bed. She took a deep breath, steadied her voice. She was fine. She would sound like it.  
“The Winter Soldier is now on the Avengers file. On probation.”  
Clint took a good twenty seconds to recover before asking her for all the details he could think of.   
She answered them with as much honesty as she could allow herself – but even Clint, her mentor and friend, didn't know about Russia. He didn't know who had trained her. When he had asked if she'd ever been in love, she had said no. Maybe too emphatically.   
After fifteen minutes – a rant, where Natalia was concerned – Clint said, “So you're happy with it, then?”  
“Shut up.” She lifted her legs and wrapped her free arm around her knees. “Does this seem like a good idea to you?”  
“It seems like the only one we've got. You can't very well keep him in cryofreeze and take him out when you need him. That's what HYDRA did.”  
“It worked.”  
“It's wrong.”  
“Says the assassin. Is this colleague sympathy?”  
“Tasha.” His voice was gentle, but reproving. “You're upset. I get it. It makes sense. But the bright side is, neither of you will be around all the time. You probably won't have to deal with him that much.”  
She closed her eyes. If only that was more of a comfort.   
“Hey, I've got to go,” said Clint. “I'll be back in a day or two. Hang in until then, okay?”  
“You know I will.” She smiled, and she heard him smile before he hung up.  
She let out a deep breath and stretched out on her back.  
At least he didn't remember.  
Fury had given them a briefing on the Winter Soldier.   
Experimental drugs had 'lifted his mental fog' (Fury's quote) but he did not remember anything that preceded the last month. Unfortunately, much of him was still in an 'experimental state,' which meant they had no idea how Barnes was going to react to anything – mentally or physically.   
Well.  
He wouldn't remember her.  
Not even their meeting four years before, when he had caused her only failed mission since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. She touched her hand to the scar near her left hip and closed her eyes.   
She remembered turning, running through the open door, stealing a HYDRA jet and escaping to France before arriving in America as Natasha Romanoff.   
How could she hate the person who had risked everything to let her escape?


	13. Full House

“Right now, I just want to know what to call him.” Steve's head was in his hands.   
Sam and Natalia shared a look.  
“You could just call him Bucky,” Sam suggested, “although I still vote we call him Frost Bite.”  
“Don't be a moron,” said Natalia.  
“I can't call him Bucky.” Steve looked at both of them, a kind of faded sorrow in his earnest eyes. “At least...not yet.”  
“Barnes?” Sam chipped in.  
Steve shook his head.  
“We can't call him the Asset,” said Natalia quietly, slowly as she waited for the coffeemaker to finish. “It might trigger something in his mind.”  
“Yeah,” said Sam. “We could be really friendly and call him James.”  
“I don't think he's ever been called James in his life,” said Steve.  
“Not even by his mother?”  
“Maybe for a few years. Honestly, once his dad started calling him Bucky, it stuck.”  
“Frost Bite,” said Sam. “It works.”  
Natalia took a deep breath. “Soldier.”  
“What?”  
“We could call him Soldier.”  
Curious but hopeful, Steve asked, “What makes you think that would work?”  
She shrugged. Because it does. “It makes sense. It appeals to his rank, but not his old personality. Plus it should get his attention.”  
They all looked toward where the walls turned into the hallway. The Soldier had been in his room and had not come out all morning, but even a ninety-six-year-old Soviet Russian assassin had to eat at some point.  
The timer went off. Sam took out the batch of blueberry muffins he'd made and set them on the granite counter top. “Well, if that smell doesn't bring him out, I don't know what will.”  
“I thought you could only make microwave food,” said Steve, smiling a little.  
“Naw, I said I only made microwave food. I didn't say I couldn't make real food.” He took a knife and coaxed the muffins from their tin before putting them on a cooling rack. “Riley used to make this kind of stuff back when we roomed together.”  
“Taught you all you know?” Natalia smiled.  
“Something like that.”  
“He sounds like an interesting guy.”  
Sam's mouth pulled tighter; not unhappy, but touched with nostalgia. “Yeah. Yeah, he was. You know they gave him a posthumous medal? Got to present it at his funeral.” He looked down and shook his head. “No body to bury, but...least he got some recognition.”  
“Yeah,” said Steve, his gaze dropping back to the table. “I know how that feels. What medal?”  
“Barnes Cross,” said Sam. “He was the forty-eighth person in history to receive it.”  
Natalia looked up. “The Barnes Cross?”  
“Yeah,” Sam began, and then paused. His eyes went from Steve to Natalia and back to Steve. “You don't – nuh-uh.”  
Natalia looked up at the glowing blue strip that ran around the top of the ceilings. “JARVIS, what is the Barnes Cross?”  
The polite, accented voice responded immediately. “The Barnes Cross is a distinguished metal awarded posthumously to members of the American Army who died during heroic acts of service. There have been forty-eight awarded since nineteen forty-four, when the President of the United States granted Sergeant James Barnes the very first, after he was killed attempting to save the life of national treasure Captain America.”  
“He didn't need to add the 'national treasure' bit,” said Sam.  
JARVIS continued. “Of course, we all know that James Barnes did not actually die in Russia. But that is beside the point.”  
Natalia looked up. “Thanks, JARVIS.”  
“My pleasure, Agent Romanoff. Or is it Romanova?”  
She waved a hand. “It was Romanova. Apparently I'm back on the team. Agent Romanoff is fine.”  
“So wait.” Sam held out a hand. “Do we call you Natalie, Natalia, or Natasha?”  
“Natasha,” she said. “I'm more used to it now, anyway.”  
Then she stiffened.  
A familiar figure, looking strangely normal in jeans and a black wife-beater, slowly rounded the corner. If not for the metal arm, he could have passed for almost anyone.  
Steve turned on his stool to look at him. “Morning,” he said by way of greeting.  
The Winter Soldier nodded.  
Sam said, “Look who's up and thawed out. Want some coffee?” Without waiting for a response, he slid a mug across the counter.   
Barnes blinked at the cup and then picked it up. He was taking in his surroundings with his permanently sad eyes.  
Natalia thought back to the display at the Smithsonian. How many times had she watched that grainy, black-and-white film of nothing but Steve and this man laughing at some private joke? She had never seen that look on the Winter Soldier's face, not once. He smiled occasionally, but those moments were rare; the sun peeking through a dark, immovable cloud cover.   
“Good Morning, James Barnes.”  
The Winter Soldier's head snapped up like he'd been shot at, and there was the jagged sound of splintering ceramic as his metal hand crushed the coffee cup like it was made of plastic.  
“Whoa, easy, JARVIS,” said Sam, his eyes wide as he took in the coffee on the counter.   
“That's just the computer,” said Steve carefully. “Stark designed it.”  
A sound – almost like a sigh – came from the Winter Soldier, and without another word, he stood up and left the room.  
“My apologies,” said JARVIS. “I was not aware I would have such a startling effect.”  
“Don't worry about it,” said Sam. “I guess he's a little jumpy.”  
Natalia – well, Natasha, she reminded herself – stood up and walked after the Soldier.  
“Where you goin'?” Sam called.  
Steve's voice added, more seriously, “Do you want me to come with you?”  
“I got it, boys.” She walked around the corner and headed town to the Soldier's room, but she paused when she saw the elevator at the end of the hall going down.  
“Jarvis,” she asked, waiting for the elevator to stop, “what floor is he going to?”  
“He is going to the eighty-seventh floor.”  
The rec room. Well, hopefully it was just to use the gym.  
The elevator sang off one note and came back up. Natasha stepped inside. “Eighty-seven,” she said, and the elevator automatically took her down. It was a smooth ride, she had to give Stark credit.  
She stepped out and gave the floor an approving glance. The JARVIS strip ran around the ceiling, of course, and the open windows had voice-activated shields. There was everything from a pool table to a boxing ring to a full set of gym equipment and an Olympic-sized pool on the other side of the dividing wall. She had the feeling once everyone was assembled in the building, this room was going to see a lot of testosterone.   
She pushed open the door that separated the room from the pool and stepped through. Rippling blue shadows patterned the walls. He wasn't there.  
She turned quickly and saw him standing behind her. She shouldn't have been that startled, but she was, even though she knew he would be there. For the first time in years, she felt unbalanced, the world around her unpredictable.  
His head was tilted to one side, his eyes glittering in the odd, water-reflected light.  
“You followed me,” he said. She remembered his voice. A little hoarse, a little broken, but clear; like he was pulling the bits together and desperately needed someone to hear him.  
“No, I – I didn't.”  
Did I actually stammer?  
I'm losing my edge.  
“You followed me,” he repeated, taking a half-step closer, barely a move at all and yet she found herself backing up. “Why?”  
“To – Fury said not to let you out of our sight.”  
“Oh,” he said, his voice tainted with acid. “I see. I'll leave the door to my room open, then.”  
“That's not what he meant.”  
“So you were following me.”  
“I just – wanted to explain about JARVIS.” She nodded at the strip.  
To her utter relief, he believed her. He followed her gaze up to the strip, and she continued. “He's a computer designed by Stark to do...well. Pretty much anything and everything. If you need to know anything, he can tell you. But be careful, because Stark gave him a pretty large sense of sarcasm. He's also the tower's security and defense mechanism.”  
He looked intrigued, but wary at the same time.  
“Go ahead,” she urged, trying to be friendly but feeling the distance she placed between them. “Ask him something.”  
For a moment, she was positive the Soldier was going to refuse. He watched the strip like it was an animal about to attack, and she couldn't blame him. In his experience, artificial intelligence was a HYDRA weapon, and no matter how used to it he was, it was not something comfortable to be around.  
Finally, he asked, “How long have I been alive?”  
“Ninety-six years, three hundred and forty-nine days.”  
A faraway look came into the Soldier's face. Natasha saw his eyes deepen, his lips press together.   
“Wrong,” he said, and, turning, walked out of the room.  
Natasha followed. “Not wrong. That was the right answer.”  
“I'm ninety-six years old. I know that.” He turned, his gaze so dull and tired that it created a heaviness in Natasha's chest just to look at him. He carried his burden like his arm; like it was a part of him, too attached and ingrained to remove, a weight that he carried because he had no choice but to accept it. “But I don't even know how much of it I've been alive for. Maybe thirty years. Maybe forty. I don't know.” He closed his eyes, like it was all too much for him, before opening them again with effort. “I might have been born two months ago for all I really know.” Without looking at JARVIS, he pointed at the strip. “That computer might know how old I am, but it doesn't know how long I've been alive.”  
Silence was Natasha's only answer, and the Soldier walked back to the elevator, flexing and re-flexing his metal fingers.   
The doors closed.  
“His endorphin levels are shockingly low,” said JARVIS.   
“Big surprise there,” said Natasha, and took the returned elevator back to her floor.


	14. Working On It

A week passed, then two. Fury called for the Winter Soldier frequently, and when Steve asked what was going on, Fury told him that they were working on 'cognitive rehab.'   
It seemed to be working, as far as Natasha could see; the Soldier seemed a little calmer,a little less erratic with each visit. Usually, he just seemed tired. He did not socialize; he rarely ate meals with them, and even Sam went out of his way to invite him to movie night, even though – as expected – he gave Sam a blank look before retiring to his room.  
When he wasn't with Fury, he was either in that room or in the gym. What he did in his room, Natasha did know; but she had seen him battling holographic soldiers in the training arena, or sitting, staring at nothing with a distant look in his eyes.  
After fifteen days, she could hold his gaze without looking away. It was the most progress she had made with herself. She only spoke to him in monosyllables and short phrases. The longest thing she had said to him was, “Fury says he wants to see you at Base One asap.”  
The longest thing he had said to her since their conversation the first day was, “I'll be there.”  
He went out of his way to avoid Steve altogether, and it was obvious Steve didn't know whether he was glad or upset. He was struggling with himself and how to treat the man whose memory of their lifelong friendship was reduced to a Smithsonian exhibit and a vague feeling he knew him.   
Sam was wary around the Soldier, but he treated him with distant politeness anyway. Sam was a friend to the world, unless you were threatening that world; and, at the moment, James Barnes was somewhere in the gray area between friend and enemy.  
And then, on the seventeenth day, the Winter Soldier was called away for another training period with Fury.  
Six days later, Fury called through to the Avengers Tower.  
They were needed, he said.  
The Winter Soldier was AWOL.


	15. Manchurian

“What do you mean 'he's missing'?” Steve demanded.  
Fury gave him a dry look. “I mean, I no longer have an eye on him.”  
Sam glanced at the others. “You mean like he ran away from home?”  
Natasha did not look away from Fury. A knot of worry was tying and re-tying itself in her chest and she was leaning forward, hanging on every word, waiting for some kind of explanation. When the answer was too slow in coming, she asked, “Where is he?”  
Nick sighed. “He's in the Ukraine.”  
They all straightened in their seats and shared glances around the table.  
Steve's voice was stern. “What is he doing in Ukraine?”  
“We got news of a rogue HYDRA high-up operating there in a private base, blocked from our sensors. We had to send someone in.”  
Steve slammed a fist onto the table. “So you sent in the person who was – and might still be - a brainwashing poster child for HYDRA to take them down?”  
Natasha flinched. She had never seen an outburst like that from him, not even when dealing with Tony.   
Fury gave him a look that was supposed to be calming, but only succeeded in making Steve look more angry. “He's been doing his job.”  
“And you didn't think to tell us?” Steve pushed his chair back and stood. “More compartmentalization?”  
Fury frowned. “Don't take that tone with me-”  
“You're no better than HYDRA.” Steve's eyes were stony. “I guess you were right. They really did take over more than you thought.” He turned and strode toward the door.  
Natasha rose and followed him.  
“Hang on.” Sam got to his feet. “Where are we going?”  
“I don't know about you,” said Steve, without looking at Fury, “but I'm going to the Ukraine to get my friend back.”


	16. Going In Dark

“It only worked....partially.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“We wiped him, sir, but the success rate was only sixty percent.”  
“Do it again.”  
“What?”  
“Wipe him and reset.”  
“Sir, we'll lose all the unsaved data-”  
“It doesn't matter. Captain America and his companions will try and save him, and we need him ready by then.”  
“Yes, sir.”

The Asset sat in the procedural chair. His gaze was pointed at the wall, but he looked at nothing. His mind was a fog, a smeared chalkboard waiting for someone to write something on it and tell him what to do.  
The door opened, and the Asset turned his head slowly to watch as someone walked in. He was familiar, he knew him. Knew the burned face, the cigarette smoke trailing from the corner of the mouth.  
“Hiya,” said Rumlow.  
The Asset returned his gaze to the wall.  
Rumlow sighed and hoisted the automatic rifle he carried along his right leg. It was overkill for the situation, sure, but he liked the feel of it. He liked overkill.   
The Asset blinked once as Rumlow moved in front of him.  
“How are you feeling?” Rumlow asked, smiling around the cigarette.  
The Asset did not respond.  
He did not like Rumlow, although he could not be sure why.  
Rumlow bit down on the cigarette and prodded the Asset in the arm with the butt of his gun. “Your S.O.'s talking to you, idiot.”  
Maybe that was why.  
Enunciating very clearly, Rumlow asked again, “How. Are. You. Feeling?”  
The Asset let out a soft breath. “I can work.”  
“Good thing some of you can, since your brain doesn't. Then again,” Rumlow added, almost thoughtfully, but with a sideways glance, “guess it's not supposed to, is it?”  
“No,” sighed the Asset.  
A man in glasses and a button-down shirt walked in, glanced at the computer, nodded, and left. This meant orders were coming soon.  
Very soon, apparently.


	17. Sound the Bugle

“All right. I have a plan.”  
Natasha and Sam looked expectantly to Steve, who was staring down at the snow-covered compound. They had borrowed a S21 craft (a small jet with reflector-lens stealth technology) from S.H.I.E.L.D and left it a quarter of a mile behind them.   
“It'd better be good,” said Sam. “Stark still hasn't given me back my wings yet since your buddy down there broke them.”  
“Don't worry, Clarence,” said Natasha. “He's probably just bedazzling them.”  
“Oh, good,” said Sam.  
Natasha folded her arms. “So what's the plan? There's two dozen guards down there, and they don't look like hired grunts, either.”  
Sam said, “Yeah, I don't think we're gonna be knocking on the front door.”  
Steve smiled. “Actually, we are.”  
Natasha lifted her eyebrows, but waited to hear him out.  
“Don't worry,” Steve said. “I've done this before.”

Rumlowe lifted his gun and looked at the ceiling as a rumble shook the building. He lifted his radio. “What was that?”  
“An explosion, sir,” said the voice on the other end. It was breathless, uncertain. “I – I don't know what's going on.”  
Rumlow spat, “Then find out, and tell me.”   
He jammed the radio back on his belt and lifted the gun with both hands.   
The Asset was pulling on his gloves, flexing his fingers.   
“You know what's happening up there, right?” Rumlow asked.  
The eyes angled toward him.  
“That's S.H.I.E.L.D coming to rescue you. You know what you're going to do, right?”  
“Kill them,” said the Asset. He straightened to his full height, his shoulders back, his stance grounded. Ready to be fired, set off, exploded.  
Rumlow looked him up and down. “You're missing something.” He tilted his head toward the mask sitting on the single aluminum shelf jutting from the wall.   
The Asset reached over and lifted the mask.   
Rumlow noticed that he paused, holding it like he was reluctant to let it touch him.  
“Put it on,” he ordered.  
The Asset's eyes flicked over to him again, but this time they held something – just a spark. Rumlow had seen that spark. He had seen it stamped out each time it flared up, and he knew that, if left unattended, it would grow and they'd have a problem.  
He pointed the gun toward the Asset. “Put it on.”  
The Asset ducked his head and placed the mask across his mouth, across his nose.  
Rumlow eased his stance. “Next time you do it when I tell you to.”  
Another explosion rattled the door in its frame.  
Static jumped from Rumlow's radio. “It's – it's Captain America, sir, and the other one, the one from D.C.”  
“Where are they?”  
“They're – they're inside.”  
“Where-”  
“It looks like they're headed down the north hall.”  
“Not here?”  
“No, sir.”  
Rumlow shrugged. “Guess we'll-”  
A thud landed against the door. The green light flashed beside the lock, and the door swung open to reveal the guard slumped against the floor, and a woman with red hair standing above him.  
“Nice place,” she said. “Could use a woman's touch, though.”


	18. What Doesn't Kill You

Natasha had known she would find the Winter Soldier here, and unlike Steve, she had not held out any hope that he would still be lucid. The memories and thoughts he had acquired over the last two months were gone again, and she could see from the look in his eyes above the muzzle of a mask that Barnes was gone.  
Again.  
The Winter Soldier's hand shot out, triggering the semi-automatic gun from inside his arm. Bullets pelted the wall as Natasha ducked and rolled under the table, kicking one leg out from underneath. It fell over, giving her a shield-proof wall. She heard several bullets hit it and bounce off, and then the shooting stopped.  
She heard the footsteps approaching and calculated.  
Three strides, and the table was ripped away, thrown across the room and breaking one of the florescent lights.   
Natasha had her choking wire ready. Instead of jumping up, she slid forward and wound it around the Winter Soldier's ankles. Then she was up, delivering a roundhouse kick to the side of his face.  
Caught off balance he fell to his knees, but a knife appeared in his hand and the wire snapped under the blade a second or two quicker than she anticipated. She saw Rumlow and an idea sparked, a quick one.   
Human shield.  
Steve wouldn't approve, but Steve wasn't here.   
Rumlow fired at her when he saw her attention divert, but she was faster than his aiming ability. She kicked the gun out of his hand and ducked under his reaching arm, pulling it around behind his back.   
“Call him off,” she told Rumlow.  
Call him off, like he was an attack dog; his arm a shock collar, his mask a muzzle.  
Rumlow laughed, but it was a strangled sound, too forced. “You really think I'm going to call him off just because of me?”  
“Wilson told me that HYDRA means pain,” said Natasha agreeably, and twisted his arm with the full brunt of her strength. She felt the bones near his elbow break with a sound like a dry stick snapping underfoot, and Rumlow's shout was long and agonized.  
The Winter Soldier had paused, assessing, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with his commanding officer in the way.  
Now Rumlow was only hampering her. She moved back and kicked him, sending him scrambling toward the Winter Soldier. Gripping his broken arm and panting, he stood behind the Winter Soldier and said, “Kill her.”  
Rumlow was giving orders.  
If she could kill Rumlow -   
Well, it would have been nice if she'd thought of that three seconds earlier.  
She never made mistakes like that. Ever.  
Somewhere inside her she knew it was because she was standing here, Rumlow's gun in her hands, facing down ghost with blue eyes. Facing her trainer, her mentor, and her lover, and she was actually thinking about it.  
Save it for later.  
“You can't kill him,” laughed Rumlow, breathing heavily. He was on his knees, hiding like a child. “Your Captain would be very upset.”  
“I know,” said Natasha.  
It was a few years ago.  
She had seen the Winter Soldier approaching through a cloud of smoke and snow, toward the crushed car.  
She pulled the scientist out of the wreckage, shielding him, putting him behind her.  
It had not stopped the Winter Soldier.  
She would not let the Winter Soldier stop her, either.  
“You won't,” Rumlow began.  
Natasha interrupted. “I will,” she said, and fired.  
A small sound, one of faint confusion, left Rumlow's throat. Behind his weaponized shield, he tried to stand. He failed, clutching his arm, and fell to the ground, a bullet hole through his neck.  
The Winter Soldier lunged for Natasha, but he only made it a few yards before his right leg buckled. Supporting himself with his metal arm and one knee, he looked down at himself. At such close range, the automatic bullet had pierced his lightweight, armored leather and gone through his abdomen, into Rumlow.   
Natasha lowered the gun and lifted her wrist. Into the comm, she said, “Rumlow's dead.”  
“And Bucky?” Steve's voice came through, filled with static but understandable.  
“Down.”


	19. Recall and Recoil

Steve ran into the room two minutes later, his shield smudged from the hits it had absorbed. “Where is he? Are you all right?”  
She gave him a thumbs-up and pointed to the Winter Soldier unconscious on the floor. “He's right there. I rolled him onto his back to slow down the bleeding.”  
“He won't be unconscious for long.” Steve leaned out the door and called, “Sam!”  
“Hang on,” was the quick response. In a few seconds, Sam ran in, a few splatters of blood staining his shirt and a purple bruise already formed around his left eye. When he saw them looking, he said, “Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”  
Steve nodded and crouched down. “Come on, we need to get him out of here.”  
“I thought we didn't want to shoot him,” Sam grunted as they got the Winter Soldier to his feet and positioned themselves under his arms so they could move him most effectively.  
“You didn't,” said Natasha.  
Steve gave her a quick, slightly betrayed look and she added, “I had to. I promise.”  
She knew her attitude was flippant, but it was better than the alternative. Better than knowing she was no better than the Winter Soldier, that her automatic response to problems was the same as his – eliminate it.  
They had to fire several more rounds before they made it out of the compound, but make it they did. Natasha was surprised that it had worked – after all, she was all about stealth. Sneaking. Deceit. Walking up and ringing the doorbell was a foreign concept, but one that seemed to work well for Captain America.  
They got the Winter Soldier on the jet. Sam settled down in the pilot's seat with Natasha in the passenger seat, and Steve sat next to the unconscious Winter Soldier.  
“He shouldn't still be out,” said Sam, as soon as they had taken off. Their shields were up and they were just praying they could make it out of enemy airspace without incident. “Should he?”  
“I don't know,” Steve admitted. “Maybe our serums were...different.”  
Natasha licked her lips and thought hard before she said anything. “He's supposed to heal faster than you, Steve. You were laid up in the hospital for what, a week after the Helicarrier incident?”  
“Hey,” said Sam, “cut him some slack. He got beat up by another super soldier.”  
“It does make a difference,” Steve admitted, “but this doesn't feel right.”   
Natasha could feel the narrowed gaze penetrating the back of her headrest.  
“Did you knock him out?” Steve asked finally.  
Natasha paused. “I may have hit him with a neuroshock dart.”  
“Dang, girl,” said Sam. “That knocks people out for days!”  
“He'll be out for an hour, maybe two,” said Natasha. “It probably only worked because his arm is connected to his brain. I...temporarily fried the connection.”  
“Oh, good,” said Sam. “So he'll be happy when he wakes up, then.”  
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Don't expect miracles, Wilson. I have to think on my feet. Look, as soon as we land somewhere, I can take care of him.”  
“You're not a doctor,” said Sam.  
“No,” Natasha countered calmly, “but I've had medical training. Barton, too.”  
Sam drew his eyebrows together. “Why's that?”  
“Because we're sent in without any extraction plans,” she explained. “If something goes wrong, we have to take care of ourselves.”   
“That sounds...” Sam searched for the right word before coming up with, “exciting.”  
“Oh, yeah,” she said dryly. “Loads.”  
There was the sound of something snapping, and then a thud. Natasha jumped from her seat while Sam, forced to keep his hands on the controls, craned his neck to look.  
The Winter Soldier was awake and climbing to his feet. Steve was shaking his head, climbing up from the floor near the wall.  
“He shouldn't be up yet!” Sam veered the jet at an angle, causing the Winter Soldier to stumble and slide against the wall while Steve gripped the back of a seat and got quickly to his feet.   
Natasha had a gun pointed directly at the wounded super soldier. “Steve? You okay?”  
“I'm okay. Put the gun down.”  
“I don't think so.”  
“I can talk to him.”  
“You can't talk to him, Steve, he's not listening! Listen, he's injured and he doesn't know where he is. We're not his friends right now, we're his enemies. You really think you can just talk him down?”  
“She has a point,” Sam called.   
“Where am I?”   
The question came from the Winter Soldier. It sounded almost mechanical coming through the mask, but the wild look in his eyes was far from robotic.   
Steve stepped forward, his hands raised in a peaceful gesture. “You're safe, Buck. Take it easy.”  
“Where am I?” repeated the Winter Soldier.  
“You're on a S.H.I.E.L.D jet. We're heading back to D.C.”  
The Winter Soldier's eyes flicked from Steve to Natasha.  
For a moment, even the air froze over.  
Then his arm shot out, and Natasha recognized the motion with no time to do anything about it. She had forgotten about the spring-activated gun he carried.  
He fired, but the bullet never hit Natasha.  
It hit Steve instead.


	20. Danger Zone

Natasha dropped to her knees as Steve held his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers. “Steve? Come on, Steve, are you with me?”  
He nodded and blew out a breath. “I'm fine.”  
“Why did you do that?” She was angry now. “Get in front of me like that? I could have dodged it!”  
“I know,” said Steve, standing with her help.  
The Winter Soldier had lowered the gun, but only a little; like he was waiting to observe the reaction to his shot before firing another.   
“Everything okay back there?” Sam's voice was taut with worry.  
“Yeah,” Natasha called, “but if you can get us to D.C any faster, that would help.”  
“Sorry,” Steve apologized with a pained half-smile.  
The Winter Soldier stood on the other side of the room, just watching, half in the shadows.  
“I still don't get why you jumped in front of it like that,” said Natasha.  
“The jet is still in beta,” said Steve. He knocked the wall. “It isn't bulletproof yet.”  
Natasha blinked. “Oh.” Slowly, she turned to face the Winter Soldier. She saw his finger move toward the trigger again; a subtle, faint motion. “You have to put the gun down.”  
He didn't move, didn't blink.  
“If you fire a shot, it'll go through the wall and we will die.”  
She could see the conflict in his eyes, and she could only imagine what was running through his brainwashed mind.  
I'm supposed to kill them.  
Die.  
Shoot them we'll all die.  
I'm not supposed to kill myself.  
Investment.  
Wait.   
Kill them once we've landed.  
Mission report.   
Done.  
He lowered his arm. The gun disappeared back inside his sleeve.  
Natasha did not relax, but she knew he had thought it through. “Sam, what's our E.T.A.?”  
“At this rate? Two hours.”  
Natasha pressed her lips together. One disoriented, angry super soldier and one desperate, hopeful super soldier, both wounded, with two hours until they landed.  
“Steve, sit down,” she said.   
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Sit down?”  
“In the passenger seat.”  
She saw confusion and mingled stubbornness cross his face. “No way. I'm not leaving you alone with him.”  
“Relax, Rogers.” She smiled. “I'll be fine.”  
“It's not you I'm worried about,” he said, the same half-teasing, half-worried tone in his voice as hers.   
“Trust me,” said Natasha. 'I can handle him.”  
She was good at lying. It was her job.  
Steve searched her face. She kept it a little tense, a little confident, a little angry. The combination was a convincing one, and after a long moment, Steve nodded. “I'm right over here,” he said, pointing toward the passenger chair less than ten feet away.  
“Relax,” she said. “What is it you say? I have him on the ropes.”  
Steve looked down. Then, finally, he nodded. “Right.” He turned and sat down in the passenger seat, and Natasha felt a small burst of gratification.  
Captain America knew she could handle herself. It was a nice feeling.  
The Winter Soldier was watching her, like a cornered dog, starved and savage, would watch an approaching stranger.   
“At ease, soldier,” said Natasha wryly. She folded her arms and widened her stance to give the appearance she had relaxed.  
He either didn't buy the command, or didn't really know what 'at ease' meant.   
“You'd better sit down before you bleed out.”  
The Winter Soldier did sit down in one of the seats by the window. There was a bolted-in table on his left side, and he rested his metal arm on it. With his legs spread, his head tilted back, he looked almost casual. If it wasn't for the steady, unblinking, watchful stare in his eyes...  
She lowered her gaze to the bullet wound bleeding through his vest. The bleeding was slow, and the bullet had pierced him. He would have already begun healing by now, unlike Steve, who had a bullet still lodged in his shoulder.  
The Winter Soldier had been shot the first time Natasha had kissed him.  
She tried not to remember, but the memory came with every sensation. She could feel his breath on her face, in her mouth, remember his hands digging into her waist.  
It was highly inconvenient.   
It was also a good thing she wasn't a blusher.  
“Before you say anything,” said Sam loudly, “I'm flying as fast as I can.”  
“What do you mean?” Natasha turned to face the pilot's seat.  
“I mean,” said Sam, “we're being followed. HYDRA jets.”


	21. Through the Fire

“Take evasive action,” said Natasha dryly, sparing a glance out the windshield.  
“Yeah, thanks,” said Sam, pulling the controls sharply to the right. The jet tilted; the Winter Soldier gripped the table to keep from sliding while Natasha held on to the seat nearest her.   
“Oh,” called Sam, “everybody fasten seat belts!”  
“You know,” said Steve, “they didn't have seat belts in 1945.”  
“They did in planes,” said Sam. “Didn't they?”  
“I don't know,” said Steve. He could have been talking about the weather, or the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars. “I wasn't a pilot.”  
“You got that right,” Sam retorted. “Mister 'I can't fly this thing so I'll just crash it into the arctic'.”  
“It was necessary!”   
“I don't – woah!” The jet veered to the left this time and arced upward. Natasha felt the oxygen growing thinner and her ears began to ache, adjusting to the pressure.  
A shot hit the side of the jet. It jolted, and Natasha barely kept her seat.  
“Sorry,” called Sam.  
“How many jets are there?”   
Steve said, “Three.”  
“Are we loaded?”  
“Just barely,” said Sam. “We have three shots.”  
Another blast knocked the jet down so quickly that Natasha was flung from her seat. She slid along the floor, but used her feet to push herself away from the pilot's chair.   
Sam swore enthusiastically, handing the controls like a kid playing Pac-Man, trying to evade any more hits.  
Another sound, loud even through the walls of the S21, made Natasha brace herself for another impact.  
Instead, Sam whooped, “YEAH, BABY!”  
“What?” The S21 leveled out, and Natasha got to her feet.   
“We've got backup!”  
Steve leaned forward. “Who is it?”  
“I don't – oh. Oh, yeah, I do,” said Sam. “Look out the window.”  
Natasha looked to the left.  
A jet, larger than hers, was flying alongside them.  
“Here comes the cavalry,” said Sam.   
From the cockpit of the other jet, Agent May was giving them the sharpest warning look she Natasha had ever seen.


	22. Compromising

May took care of the remaining two HYDRA jets before she came over their comm system. “I'm bringing you in.”  
That was it. She did not request an explanation, she did not threaten.   
“We're busted,” said Sam.  
“We don't know that,” said Steve, holding his shoulder.   
Sam gave him a quick glance. “You'd better get that taken care of as soon as we land.”  
The Winter Soldier had not moved when Natasha looked at him, but a shot of unnerving electricity bubbled through her veins when she saw his gaze was fixed on her, immobile.  
She did not look at him again until they landed.  
S.H.I.E.L.D no longer needed to resort to buses or subs as headquarters. Surely and swiftly they were rebuilding, and they had created a private base in the country, thirty miles outside of New York City.  
They landed the jets, and Natasha stood up. “Come on,” she said to the Winter Soldier. “Let's go.”  
He rose to his feet, and she waited until he was ahead of her before exiting the jet. May was waiting just outside, her arms folded.  
There was no expression on her face, not even when she saw who they had brought with them.  
She jerked her chin toward Steve. “You injured?”  
“It's just a scratch,” Steve began, but Sam interrupted.  
“He's shot.”  
“Take him to the infirmary,” said May. “Get patched up. Agent Romanoff, come with me. Bring that.” She turned and began to walk away from them, toward the hangar.  
Sam called after her. “What do we do once Steve's fixed up?”  
“Join us in the conference room,” said May.   
Natasha wished Clint was there. She felt as if all the common sense had been sucked out of her small sphere and it was spinning out of control, off axis. Clint could provide some gravity, some kind of balance. She would call him tonight, if she wasn't immediately sent off to Guatemala on a punishing assignment.   
May slowed down so she could walk across from the Winter Soldier. She kept her eyes on him, sharp and mistrustful.  
Natasha didn't blame her.  
“How-” May began.  
“Talk to Steve,” said Natasha. “I owed him a favor. That's the only reason I agreed to this.”  
“You could have all gotten yourselves killed.”  
“I'm aware.”  
“You risked your lives for that? He's more of a liability than any one of us. We thought Ward was bad enough.”  
Natasha had heard about Ward. He was practically infamous by now in S.H.I.E.L.D circles, discussed with equal parts loathing, shock, and admiration. The longest undercover mission Natasha had ever undergone was four months.  
She glanced at the Winter Soldier.   
His undercover op had lasted seventy-three years and counting.   
They entered the hangar, and the Winter Soldier's presence drew attention from every agent they saw. People stopped what they were doing to stare. Operatives automatically reached for their guns. Nobody said a word, but Natasha knew plenty was being said behind their backs as they headed toward the conference room.  
May and Natasha were level eight, and had access to almost anywhere.  
The Winter Soldier had no access, so May tapped the intercom. “We're here,” she said. “Let him through.”  
She did not sound happy with her words, but the doors opened long enough to let all three of them inside.   
Natasha stopped short.  
Coulson stood with his arms folded comfortably, and not six feet from him stood Nick Fury.  
The Director was no longer in plainclothes. He had resumed his leather duster, his eye patch familiar, back where it should be. Natasha had one heard Stark offer to make a high-tech implant, but Fury refused, saying he liked things old-fashioned. She had thought it was an ironic statement, coming from him.  
“Sir,” she said, standing at attention.  
“Agent.”  
“It's nice to see you again so soon,” said Coulson, with a smile.  
Natasha smiled. “And you, Agent Coulson.”   
Everyone in the ranks had rejoiced when the news was released that Agent Coulson was alive. It had been spilled when Natasha leaked all of S.H.I.E.L.D's information online. Stark had been the first to contact her about it. Even she hadn't known until she read it in the files she had made public.  
“Nice to see you both in one piece,” said Fury.  
“They were being tailed by HYDRA jets,” said May. Her voice was a blank slate. “I took care of them.”  
“Good,” said Coulson. “Thank you.”  
“Where is Captain Rogers?” Fury wanted to know.  
“With Wilson,” said May. “In the infirmary. Captain Rogers sustained a bullet to the shoulder. He'll be fine.”  
Natasha debated mentioning the Winter Soldier's own bullet wound. She looked over her shoulder at him. It was difficult to tell whether he even realized he had been shot, or whether he had simply been trained to ignore any injuries. She didn't doubt it. This was the man who stood in front of moving cars, who caught hand grenades and threw them back. Personal safety was of no consequence to him.  
“Sir, the Winter Soldier was wounded in action as well,” said Natasha.   
Fury raised an eyebrow. “How?”  
“He was shot.”  
This raised more incredulity. “He was shot? How?”  
Natasha took a deep breath. “I shot through him myself, to get to Rumlow.”  
“Is Rumlow dead?”  
“Yes, sir.”  
Coulson said, “We should get Barnes to the infirmary as well.”  
“We'll take care of any bullet wound while we deal with him in the prep room,” said Fury. He directed his next question toward the Winter Soldier. “Do you understand me, soldier?”  
One moment. Then a nod.  
“With all due respect, sir,” said May, “I don't think holding him here is a good idea.”  
“We don't have anywhere that is,” said Coulson. “Right now, this is the most secure location we have.”  
“Then we should keep him on ice.”  
Natasha couldn't help glancing at the Winter Soldier. He did not move, but his eyes darted sharply to May's face.  
“Sir,” said Natasha, stepping forward, “let us handle him.”  
“We can't,” said Fury. “We need to run some tests, see what HYDRA did to mess up our progress.”  
“Afterward,” she said. “Let him come back to the Tower with Rogers and myself. Between us and Wilson, we can monitor his activities without keeping him in a stressful environment.”  
Fury sighed deeply and shook his head. “This is worse than Banner.”  
“Who, incidentally, will be joining you at the Tower,” said Coulson.  
May arched her eyebrows. “Why?”  
“It's safer,” said Coulson. “At the moment. For everyone.”  
“All the eggs in one basket,” said May. “I assume Stark is staying in his own tower.”  
“Since Stark isn't technically an Avenger, we can't order him to do anything,” said Coulson. “He advises.”  
Natasha could see him pondering, weighing the pros and cons of her request.  
Steve owed her.  
Big time.  
“All right,” said Fury finally. “I would say no, but Stark's come up with a new monitoring implant so we can keep an eye on him if things get bad. Unless HYDRA has damaged his brain beyond repair-”  
Again, thought Natasha.  
“- he can return to the Tower with you.”  
She nodded. “Thank you, sir.”  
“Agent Romanoff?”  
She braced herself. “Yes, sir?”  
He lowered his head, giving her the full force of his one good eye. “If this goes South one more time, I'm going to take Agent May's advice and put him back on ice until I see fit to thaw him out. Do you understand?”  
“I understand.”  
Again, she couldn't help looking at the Winter Soldier. Being discussed as if he wasn't there, having his life tossed back and forth like a game of catch – it had to be uncomfortable.  
There was still no expression in his eyes. Nothing above the mask.  
If he was frowning, there was no way to tell.  
Fury motioned toward them. “You're dismissed. Take Barnes to the prep room.”  
“I'd like permission to be present during the tests,” said Natasha.  
She wanted to think Steve owed her again, but the truth was, part of her wanted to be there. She didn't know why. She didn't want to know why.  
Fury blinked once at her. “Fine,” he said. “But don't interfere.”  
“No, sir. Thank you.”  
They left the room and ran into Steve and Sam just as the doors closed behind the.  
“Don't bother,” said Natasha to Steve, who was staring at the Winter Soldier like he did every time he saw him – with too many emotions to name. “Looks like your lost puppy is coming home with us.” She nodded toward the bandage around his shoulder. He had removed his suit and was once again in slacks and a tee shirt. “How's the arm?”  
“Barely a scratch,” he said. “I'll be fine.”  
“Yeah,” said Sam. “In a couple days you won't be able to tell anything hit him.”  
Natasha nodded again. “Look, Fury ordered me to take the Winter Soldier to the prep room for some tests.”  
“What kind of tests?” Steve demanded.  
“Don't worry.” She adopted the soothing, 'everything's going to be all right' tone that she was so used to. She had used it on more operations than she could name. “We'll be back before midnight. I promise.”


	23. Hear Me Now

This was strange. It was an uncomfortable reversal of roles, and she didn't like it. The Winter Soldier oversaw her. The Winter Soldier was her S.O.   
This....  
This was not how it was supposed to be.  
“You gonna make it?”She glanced sideways at him. Holding his gaze was a bad idea; she knew from experience.  
He nodded.  
“Ask a silly question,” she muttered.  
They reached the prep room at the end of the hall. She faced the screen near the door. “Agent Romanoff,” she said. “And...” Agent Barnes? Hardly. “I have the Winter Soldier here for prep and repair.”  
She did not have a badge; she had ditched it when she tossed her Natasha Romanoff identity. Now, however, she was Natasha again; which meant security could have snafus now and then.   
“Is he unarmed?”  
Natasha opened her mouth, then closed it. Glancing sideways at the Soldier, she said, “Rephrase that question?”  
“Is he carrying any weapons,” was the flat response.  
“No,” said Natasha. She had made sure of that. Not that 'not carrying weapons' made him anything but deadly.  
“Bring him in.”  
The doors opened and she entered the prep room. The walls were silver, which she preferred to sterile white. The overall effect of the room was that Stark's basement had collided with a hospital's operating room.  
“Remover your vest and shirt,” said a doctor with a tablet in his hand. He squinted at Natasha. “Hello, Agent Romanoff. Not you.”  
“I know not me.” She looked at the Winter Soldier and hoped he would just follow procedure. It was probably too much to ask, and she would have to physically restrain him from injuring someone. The insurance cost to cover the doctors and scientists who worked on him would probably have made Stark balk.  
The Winter Soldier unfastened his vest and pulled his shirt over his head. A small, bespectacled man appeared out of nowhere and took the clothes, then whisked out of the room, probably glad to be away.  
“Have a seat,” said the scientist. His name tag said 'White.'  
The Winter Soldier looked at the procedural chair, his lips tightening. Then he sat.   
“He was shot,” said Natasha.  
The scientist crouched to inspect the wound in the Soldier's abdomen. He called a doctor over. “It went clean through,” said the doctor. “That's good.”  
The scientist sighed. “Looks like I spoke too soon. Get up.”   
The Winter Soldier stood.  
“Sit there, on the table.”  
The Winter Soldier sat.  
Natasha watched, her arms folded, as the doctor and the scientist cleaned the bullet wound and stitched it.  
“The stitches will dissolve in forty-eight hours,” said the doctor, tying off the end. “He should be fine by then. I wouldn't worry about it.”  
“I won't,” said Natasha. Or I wouldn't, she thought, if I hadn't been the one who shot him.  
White pointed toward the chair again. “Back to the chair.”  
The Winter Soldier sighed through his nose and sat back in the chair. Natasha noticed the dejected resignation with which he did so, and it was like a needle-prick in the back of her mind. Someone this powerful, this deadly, should not be able to be ordered around with the wave of a hand and some monotone, monosyllabic commands.   
He could have killed every one of them; thrown them across the room like dolls, punched their heads in.   
Instead, he sat down with that vacant look in his eyes  
Natasha put her hands on her hips to keep from rubbing her arms. “How long is this going to take?”  
“Half an hour,” said White. “An hour at most.”  
“What are you going to do?”  
He raised an eyebrow. “Fury give you clearance to know?”  
She tilted her head and arched her own eyebrow. She held his gaze until he blinked uncomfortably and re-focused on his work.  
“We're working on a serum to help...rejuvenate his memories, so to speak.”  
“I thought they'd all been destroyed.”  
“Not all of them,” said White. “Some were, certainly, but the rest were really just repressed.”  
“Is it safe? Having them resurface?”  
White shrugged. “The drug is still in beta. So far, the side effects have been minimal.”  
“Why bother with restoring his memory?” she wanted to know. “Why not just wipe him and start over?”  
She saw the Winter Soldier's eyes sharpen, his gaze suddenly on her instead of the wall.   
“Fury and Coulson didn't want that,” said White. “They want to do this as humanely as possible. They figure, the more personality he has, the better he'll be able to make the right decision.”  
This time, both of Natasha's eyebrows arched. “Do you believe that?”  
'I'm a scientist,” said White. “Not a humanitarian.”  
“That's not a very good answer.”  
White sighed and took a syringe from the doctor. “I think the subject is too far gone. We won't ever be able to bring back everything, and even when we do, who's to say if he'll be able to sort himself out?”  
“So you believe Fury and Coulson are dreaming.”  
“It doesn't matter what I believe,” said White. He crossed over to the chair and sat down on a stool next to the Winter Soldier. “He's never going to be a real live boy again. Lean your head forward.”  
The Winter soldier bowed his head, and White pushed the hair away from the nape of his neck. He attached something that looked like a small plug with two tiny needles there, then said, “Lean back.”  
“What was that?” Natasha asked.  
“You're full of questions,” said White.  
Natasha quirked her mouth. “That wasn't an answer.”  
White pinched his lips together and looked distinctly unhappy with her presence. “I'm injecting the drug into his cerebral cortex, where it will travel to his hippocampus and get to work polishing his memories off.”  
Natasha smiled. “Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?”  
“Not so hard,” said White. “But we might be here two hours if I can't work in peace.” He reached over to the computer next to the chair and touched a button on the screen.  
Clamps distended from the arms of the chair and locked the Winter Soldier's arms in place, while another came from the back of the chair and held the Winter Soldier's head down. White lifted something that looked like a mask from where it hung over the corner of the computer screen and pressed it over the Winter Soldier's mouth, where a light flickered in the center and then it clamped across his jaw.  
Natasha opened her mouth to ask why those were necessary when every muscle in the Winter Soldier's body seemed to seize at once. His back arched, his fingers splayed, stiffened in pain. His stomach and chest heaved with shallow, panicked breaths, and Natasha knew that if Steve were here, he would be demanding that they stop.  
Steve would want her to do something.  
“Stop,” she said, lowering her arms and taking a step forward.   
White shook his head. “Can't. The plug is in his brain. It won't detach until the serum is fully administered.”  
Of course it wouldn't. “How long will this take?”  
“Like I said,” said White. “Optimistically, forty-five minutes.”  
The Winter Soldier's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, and Natasha could tell that underneath the muzzle, he was screaming.   
“Side effects,” sighed White.


	24. Traffic Jam

'He's never going to be a real live boy again.'  
Natasha looked over at the Winter Soldier who sat in the passenger seat of the car, staring out the windshield. He always managed to look utterly alone, no matter the company. In many ways, he was.  
She remembered Steve saying that it was difficult to find someone with 'shared life experience.' She had hoped – in some small, ridiculous way – that Barnes's presence would be a comfort to Steve.   
Yeah, that had been stupid.  
Instead, he only added to Steve's problems and distracted him when he needed to focus.  
And he was distracting her.  
She knew that much.  
Well, she just wouldn't let it continue.   
She would vent to Clint when he returned, and then she would be fine. She had passed her psych evaluations, she had proved she was fine, but part of her still doubted.   
She was not going to let Barnes distract her any-  
A metal hand shot out and grabbed the side of the steering wheel, wrenching the car to the left side of the road, into oncoming traffic.   
Natasha pushed her foot down on the brake, shouting something unintelligible. “Are you insane?”   
The Winter Soldier let go of the wheel and shoved his door open. Natasha pulled her gun from the compartment underneath her seat and climbed out of the car.   
Barnes was striding across the middle of the road. She knew that walk.  
Sam called it the 'epic stride of homicide,' and he wasn't that far off. Someone was in the Soldier's kill sights.  
A shot struck the car near her head, and she ducked behind the door. She took a breath and gauged where the bullet had come from, then got to her feet and fired back. Her bullets struck a BMW straddling the street's center line, but she stopped firing when she saw the car was about to be taken care of.   
The vehicle came to life, tires squealing as it backed up, but the Winter Soldier had already jumped. He landed with the force of a tank on the hood of the BMW.  
Natasha knew his pattern; he had always used it, and it had always worked. It was why she had left the back seat and practically climbed into Steve's lap when the Winter Soldier attacked their car on the highway – she knew the car was already lost, and he was her hope for making it out alive.  
The Winter Soldier would disable their ability to drive.  
His fist smashed through the windshield and ripped out the steering wheel.  
They'll try to run. They won't make it.  
The doors opened and three men scrambled from the car, firing shots at the Winter Soldier as they ran through traffic. Cars swerved and wove, trying to avoid them.  
The Winter Soldier had no weapon, not yet; nothing except the steering wheel gripped in an iron fist. He pulled his arm back and threw it.   
Natasha watched, transfixed with morbid fascination, as the steering wheel struck the driver in the neck. He hit the pavement, lifeless.   
The Winter Soldier leaped over the hood of an SUV and went after the other two.  
Overhead, a helicopter whirred.   
Great. They were probably on the news.  
She climbed back into the car and put it in drive. She pushed through bewildered traffic. If she took out one, then the Winter Soldier could focus on the other.  
She pushed down hard on the accelerator, speeding toward the man in the suit running away. If she could take him in, then she could question him.  
She stopped the car and opted for running on foot. He was still running, but where was he hoping to go? She lifted her gun and fired. The first bullet barely missed him, the second struck him in the calf. He did a spectacular flip, head over heels, and landed in a wounded heap.  
A car, large and black and familiar, pulled up alongside her. She turned, ready to fire, but lowered the gun as Agent Hill stepped out from the passenger side.  
“Call off Barnes before he destroys all the forensic evidence,” said Hill dryly, striding toward the man on the ground, clutching his leg and bleeding through his torn suit.  
Natasha turned around and jogged back down the clogged street. People were remaining in their cars, wisely aware that, since New York, it was better not to get in the middle of sudden public battles.  
“Soldier!”  
He straightened, a gun in his hand. He dropped it on top of the body, riddled with bullet holes.   
“Come on.” Natasha jerked her head.  
The Winter Soldier followed her back to where Agent Hill and another man Natasha didn't recognize were loading the prisoner into the back of the car.   
Hill folded her arms and arched an eyebrow at both of them as they approached.  
“You want to tell me what's going on here?” she asked, “or should I take you both in to the directors?”


	25. Seven Nation Army

“You could have just said, 'Hey, Romanoff, there's a car driving toward us.'” Natasha kept her eyes narrowed and her arms folded across her chest.  
The Winter Soldier's voice was hesitant and hoarse. “You were distracted.”  
“And you startled me. I could have shot you.”  
He quirked one eyebrow, just a little. Just enough to indicate, so what?  
“You say you know them?”  
“The driver.”  
“At least something about your memory's improving,” Natasha muttered. Hill had called for backup and they had already cleaned up the highway. Unfortunately, there was still the problem of what the news would already be showing – of the Winter Soldier and Natasha Romanoff, shooting across a busy street.  
Natasha's phone rang. She did not have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. She answered. “Hey, Steve, did you like our little performance?”  
“On live television?”   
“Well, driving from base to the Tower gets a little boring. It's almost twenty minutes.”  
“This isn't funny.”  
Natasha knew it wasn't funny. She knew they had compromised security. “I know it was too public, but we didn't have a choice. They were shooting at us.”  
“Really? Because I didn't hear anything about first shots fired.”  
Natasha opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked over at the Winter Soldier, who was standing by the car, waiting. They had parked alongside a less-busy street to get things sorted out.  
“Actually...”  
“Let me guess,” said Steve. “You shot first, asked questions later.”  
“We didn't have a choice.”  
“How did you know they were hostile?”  
“The fact that they were driving toward us against traffic was something of a giveaway.”  
There was silence. She could almost hear the wheels turning in Steve's mind. Then he said, “Bucky shot first. Didn't he.”  
“Steve-”  
“Did he shoot first, or didn't he?”  
“He did.”  
Natasha closed her eyes. She could feel the Winter Soldier looking at her, but she focused on paying no attention to him. “We can't expect perfect results all at once, Steve. We've got to take this slow. I know you have a problem with people getting hurt, and I'd rather they didn't if they don't have to. He doesn't get that yet.”  
“We need to make him see that he can't start a firefight in the middle of a busy street. Or any street.”  
“I know, but-”  
“Not without orders.”  
“I know.”  
A muffled voice spoke in the background, and Natasha assumed it was Wilson, telling Steve to calm down and chill out.   
Then Steve said, “Someone wants to talk to you.”  
Without waiting for her response, the phone switched hands, and a familiar voice spoke in her ear. “Nat?”  
“Clint?” Bewildered, she asked, “Are you at the Tower?”  
“Yeah, I just got in an hour ago,” he said. “Nighttime news is more interesting than it used to be.”   
“Look, I already told Rogers that it was necessary. We had to do it.”  
“Why?”  
“Barnes recognized someone in the car. Or he says he did.”  
“You didn't press farther?”  
“He won't talk about it.”  
“Say 'please'!”  
“Hill is going to question the subject we brought in, and call us back tomorrow for a follow-up.” Again, she glanced at the Winter Soldier, just to make sure he was still there. For a large, weaponized super-soldier, he was excellent at vanishing without a trace. After he had fired through her to get to the nuclear scientist, she had tried to find some kind of trail, tried to find him. She had wasted a week with nothing before she realized she wasn't going to find him, not until he resurfaced somewhere else on the globe and killed another person.  
She just hadn't imagined that person would be Fury.  
Or Steve.  
Clint sighed, bringing her back to the present. “All right. Well, have a safe drive home and try not to get into any more trouble.”  
“I'll give it my best shot,” said Natasha, smiling.  
“See you later.”  
She hung up and slid the phone back into her pocket. She took a breath, then faced the Winter Soldier. “From now on, no more shooting anyone without permission.”  
His arms were folded, his stance almost arrogant. But his eyes were watching her, waiting for her to speak, and when she did, he nodded.  
“I mean it, Barnes.”  
He nodded again; just a single incline of the head. An acknowledgment.  
“Good.” She climbed back into the driver's seat. “Because someone at home is pretty unhappy with you.”


	26. This Means War

They reached the Tower and took the elevator up. The elevator was quick and smooth and silent, but the silence had a stiffness to it that made Natasha glad when the doors opened and she saw Clint with his feet up on the arm of the couch, reading.  
“Looks boring,” she remarked. “Last job too exciting for you?”  
Clint turned another page. “It's not mine,” he said.  
Natasha stepped around so she could read the title. “The life and letters of Stonewall Jackson.”  
“It's mine,” said Steve. He smiled at Natasha, and continued to smile when he saw the Winter Soldier; but it changed from something friendly to something hesitant and sad.  
Natasha was sick of seeing that look on his face. There were three living people she trusted, and they were Clint Barton, Nick Fury, and Steve Rogers.  
“Want to tell me what was going on out there?” Steve demanded.  
The Winter Soldier regarded him in silence. Then he said, “I knew them.”  
“Who?”  
“The man in the car.”  
“There were three men in the car,” said Natasha.   
“The passenger.”  
“In the front seat?” asked Steve.  
Natasha said, “He's dead.”  
Steve nodded toward the Winter Soldier. “Did he...” He rephrased and asked directly, “Did you kill him?”  
The Winter Soldier nodded.  
“Why?”  
The Winter Soldier opened his mouth a fraction, about to answer. Then his eyebrows drew together and his eyes took on a kind of fog. “I...”   
They waited.  
“I don't know,” he said finally. He pressed his lips together. “I just did.”  
“Great,” said Clint. “Nat, what were you doing in Ukraine? Did it have something to do with the fact that all the progress S.H.I.E.L.D.'s made with him has gone down the drain?”  
Steve glared at Clint. “It wasn't his fault. They sent him on a covert mission, and it was a trap.”  
Clint began, “I'm just saying-”  
“Well, stop saying.” Steve's voice was unusually sharp. He looked at the Winter Soldier, then Natasha. He sighed.   
Natasha spoke before he could. “We'll know more tomorrow.” She glanced at the Winter Soldier. “We're going back for a briefing.”  
Steve nodded. “I'll accompany you.”  
“In the mean time,” said Natasha, “I'm going to make some coffee and get a shower and then you-” she pointed at Clint “-are going to tell me just how much fun you had without me these last few weeks.”

 

“Sir, it was him. He's back in D.C.; he took out one of our vehicles with three agents inside.”   
“It was who? Be specific.”  
Bakshi watched the blue glow from the computer screen illuminate the doctor's face. “The Winter Soldier.”  
Daniel Whitehall lifted his gaze. “He escaped from Ukraine?”  
“Apparently so.” Bakshi rotated his shoulders inside his tailored jacket. “I tried to contact the Ukraine base.”  
“And?”  
“Nothing. No response.”   
Whitehall sighed. Carefully, he removed his glasses and wiped them on the corner of his clean pocket square. He held them up to the light, inspecting his work, before he settled them back on the bridge of his nose. “And how did you discover this?”  
“It's all over CNN.”   
Whitehall's face seemed to meld from flesh to stone. “And why was there a vehicle for them to apprehend?”  
“My best guess? Our agents saw who it was and decided to try taking them out.”  
“Them? Who was with him?”   
Bakshi knew 'him' was the Winter Soldier. “Agent Romanoff.”  
“The Black Widow and the Winter Soldier, after all these years.” Whitehall's mouth twitched once. “How interesting.” He snapped his gaze back to Bakshi. “Did they apprehend any of our agents?”  
“It would seem that Agent Dalton was apprehended.”  
“A shame,” said Whitehall. “Protocol Silence.”   
“I tried that,” said Bakshi. “Unfortunately, it would appear they already disabled him. I believe they extracted his eye.” He paused, watching his superior. “Would you like me to-”  
“No.” Whitehall smiled. “I believe we can place the advantage of this situation in our hands.”


	27. There's No Place Like the Tower

When Natasha got out of the shower, she planned on getting a glass of water and hitting the sack. When she came out of the bathroom, toweling her hair dry, she was greeted by a sight she hadn't ever thought she would see.  
Steve and Clint were sitting on the couch at opposite ends, watching the television, while the Winter Soldier stood behind the couch, his arms folded, also watching. He looked as if he, too, had showered in one of the many other bathrooms; his hair was damp and he was out of uniform.   
Natasha approached the living room and asked slowly, “What are you guys doing?”  
“Watching a movie,” said Clint. He patted middle of the couch. “Want a seat?”  
“What movie?” She stepped closer and faced the screen. It took her a moment to recognize the technicolor scene. “The – you're watching the Wizard of Oz?”  
“Sure are,” said Clint. “I've never seen the whole thing, have you?”  
“No-o, only the beginning.” Was this really happening? Two of the deadliest assassins ins in history and Captain America himself, were watching the Wizard of Oz?   
“Where to?” asked Clint.  
She thought back. This was ridiculous, but.... “I think she had just reached Oz.”  
“You're just in time, then,” said Steve, with a friendly smile. “I haven't seen this movie in...well. A long time.”  
“Opening night?” Clint teased.  
Steve glanced down and then smiled at the screen. “I saw it a few times after that.”  
“No kidding, you really saw it on opening night?” Clint's eyebrows rose. “Tell me you at least got a poster.”  
Steve grinned. “No, just ticket stubs. I thought the girl was pretty.”  
“Judy Garland, or Dorothy?”  
“Judy Garland. Bucky used to give me such a hard time about it.” Steve laughed. “He's the one who dragged me there on opening night.”  
“Why'd he have to drag you?” Nat sat down in the middle of the couch and set the towel in her lap. “Didn't you want to go?”  
“I was feeling low,” said Steve, shrugging. “I'd just been stood up-”  
“Oh.”  
“-for the second time that week.”  
Nat smiled and nudged him with her elbow. “It's hard to believe anybody would turn down a date with Captain America.”  
“Now, maybe.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Back then, I can't blame them.”  
“You've always been a good person, Steve.”  
“Maybe, but being a good person doesn't replace good looks. Or muscles. Or anything else, really.” He leaned his head back, still smiling.   
“Did you ever ask that nurse out?” Nat asked suddenly. She hadn't thought of Steve's relationships – if there were any – in a month, maybe more.   
“We had coffee,” said Steve.  
Nat blinked. “You had coffee?”  
'You guys make it hard to watch a movie,” said Clint.  
“He's right,” said Steve. “It's rude to talk during a movie.”  
In a loud whisper, Nat repeated, “You had coffee?”  
“Yes,” Steve whispered back.  
“When?”  
“A few weeks ago. And then one other time, a week ago.”  
“You've had coffee twice and you didn't tell me?”  
“We were busy. You were off-grid.”  
“You had my cell!”  
“I didn't-”  
“Guys,” said Clint. “I've never seen the movie all the way through, remember? If you want to have a conversation, vacate the premises, because I want to watch. So does Barnes.” He looked backward, over the back of the couch. “Don't you, Barnes?”  
The man in question glanced at the archer, then shrugged.  
“Told you,” said Clint.  
Natasha rolled her eyes and leaned against Clint's shoulder, bunching up the towel as a pillow. “Fine. But after, Steve, you're giving me all the details.”  
“Yes, ma'am,” said Steve.


End file.
